"Isn't that some form of bifurcation?"
Lawrence Donegan caught Cameron Morfit's report on the new Titleist Pro V1 Spin and Plus Trajectory balls and in particular the manufacturer note to players:
"These products are not in response to nor designed to address new groove rules and they are not planned to be sold commercially."
Donegan asks and I do think he's correct in wondering:
Obviously these two balls have been approved under existing rules but they are something new and different; they have been designed for the pros, will be played only by the pros and they will never be sold commercially to the paying punter. Isn't that some form of bifurcation?
Of course this is only an issue because as Donegan documents, Acushnet has been against bifurcating the professional and amateur games.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 08:07 PM 16 Comments | in 2010 PGA Tour, Golf Business, Grooves, State of the Game, Technology 
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Reader Comments (16)
Correct me if I'm wrong (it's been a long time ago, and I don't feel like surfing the web for the answer) but didn't Nike get into trouble years ago because Tiger was playing a ball that wasn't available to the public?
Isn't this why so many people play Titleist clubs/balls, even though most of us probably can't handle them? That whole, "The pros use the exact same clubs I do! How cool is that?" deal.
Before anyone gets mad- that isn't a knock. Some people get into certain types of gear because so-and-so-Pro uses it. If that's your thing, there's nothing wrong with that, I'm just relating it to this "bifurcation" deal.
I've always just assumed that Pros have access to stuff that isn't available to we poor weekend hackers. Aren't Tiger's irons really Mizunos and his Nike ball a Pro V ?
It isn't bifurcation to not invite me to play in the Masters next April. Nor is it bifurcation for a business to say 'Sorry, we are sold out of that ball you like'. But it would be bifurcation if the rules said pros and ranked amateurs had to use specified equipment and mugs like me can use whatever someone can sell to me.
Now, when there are ten groups to consider and we have to discuss defecation, well...
Scotty will make you anything at all that your heart desires, it just ain't cheap.
You can get the balls, too, you just have to know how, not that they'd do you any good nor that you could tell the difference.
@ Longy ..... Nike has it's own golf ball design staff led by Rock Ishii and has many of it's own golf ball patents. IIRC Bridgestone though still does the manufacturing of Nikes golf balls. As for Tigers irons it's another one of those well worn myths that his irons are simply a copy of old Mizuno irons. Guess some rumors die hard. If your comment was meant as sarcasm I apologize as it is hard to know at times when people are using sarcasm in this type of forum/blog/db.
there's at least one guy i know of who made a pretty good living offering this sort of stuff to the masses online. i bought a few things from him (at wildly inflated prices) myself. ridiculous, i know, but what are you gonna do?
This isn't "bifurcation" in any meaningful or useful sense, so Titleist is NOT guilty of any hypcrisy on that dimension. Every one of the large equipment manufacturers is offering tour-only equipment to its elite staff members (and sometimes the gray market of reps and caddies and others) that is all perfectly legal under the good ol' unbifurcated Rules of Golf. The differences with the tour-only stuff is sometimes in terms of better quality, but more than anything, it is geat that is simply spec'ed for extremely good players.
Hence:
Drivers with more open face angles (that hackers would slice to hell);
Balls (like Tiger's personal Nike ball) that spin more and which would do recreational players no good, since they'd have a much harder time finding the fairway;
Putters from the Scotty Cameron or Taylor Made studios in Carlsbad that are the product of detailed individual player testing;
Iron sets that are handmade to provide players with the same look and feel and trajectories as other sets they had owned, and worn out previously (or were manufactured by another, competing company).
But there's one thing about this story that I DONT' GET, and about which nobody's said much. It is this: Why is Titleist going waaaaaayy out of its way to deny the obviously true, that these new balls are indeed designed as a response to the new groove rules? What's up with that? Is is a legal strategy? Is it marketing -- wherein Titleist doesn't want the public to think that they aren't getting what the big boys really playe with?
Geoff, here's what I think -- The new groove rule is clearly a form of bifurcation. That is, the Condition of Competition is a bifurcation. And clearly, everyone knew, and anticipated, and probably intended, that the elites' response to the Condition would be to get spinnier balls. And now, it seems, they have. But Titleist, true to their commercial desire that the game not be bifurcated, wishes simply to downplay what is really happening; that tour players operating under the Condition of Competition are going to balls that better work under the Condition.
And who knows if it is a form of guerilla marketing as well? Promoting a mad desire among the elite cognoscenti to get their hands on a ball that is "tour only." Which simply be introduced at retail around the time of the U.S. Open or something, and will sell like hotcakes (remember the orignial Pro-V1?) even though it does nothing for recreational players...?
So, no, to answer the title question.
I'm dumb but not too dumb that I don't know that tour guys and amateurs don't have access to the same equipment. I just have never seen it explicitly stated by an equipment company rep.
interesting thread
lawrence
Thanks. Didn't know Nike designed their own balls. Re Tiger's Nike Mizunos. Well there was a bit of sarcasm there. Just looking for a bite.
Cheers
Come on Jay--would love to hear your thoughts-perhaps offline??!?!!
I think Norman got DQ'd from an event in the mid to late 90's for using a non-conforming version of the Maxfli HT balata. It was a prototype ball that hadn't been added to the conforming list. Yet, strangely, Maxfli had supplied them to him for tournament use.